A CONVERSATION WITH LISA WINGATE

Q. Good Hope Road deals with the effects of a disaster on a community. How much of the book was inspired by the events of September 11, 2001?

 

A. The answer is twofold. I began writing Good Hope Road long before September 11. The book was originally inspired by a devastating tornado that swept through Oklahoma City the day after I had been there speaking at a conference and visiting friends. When I saw coverage of the tornado on the news, I kept thinking, “Dear God, we were just there.” My husband and I started trying to call friends and loved ones, but the phone lines were down. As we watched the TV coverage, trying to discern which areas had been hit, the stories about the community banding together gave us a sense of hope. There were so many powerful images, but one in particular stayed with me—that of a girl pulling photographs from the debris near a rural home and saying she didn’t know who they belonged to, that they might have been carried from miles away. It was probably only a minute or two of news footage, but it haunted me. Inspired by that image, I began writing Jenilee’s story.

By September 11, the manuscript was completed, and I was about to begin revisions. That September morning, the book took on a completely new meaning for me. In the wake of those horrible events, during those few days when we didn’t know what might happen next, I needed to believe that the human spirit, that a community of people, could overcome even the worst tragedy. I wanted to create a book that would celebrate the best in human nature and the ability of good to triumph over destructive forces.

 

Q. Why do you choose to write books in the first-person point of view?

 

A. I like the closeness to the character that first-person point of view provides. I like the feeling that you’re hearing a real person, not a third-person narrator, tell a story. I often get so wrapped up in the characters and their stories that I forget they aren’t real people living out their lives somewhere. First-person point of view doesn’t work for every story, but for many of my stories it helps create the impression of a personal narrative being told to the reader (and actually, to the writer) in a very intimate one-on-one fashion.

 

Q. How much of the book is inspired by your own experience?

 

A. Well, I grew up in Tornado Alley in northern Oklahoma, so from an early age, I knew about tornadoes and the need to run to the “ ’fraidy hole” when funnel clouds were reported on the news. I’ve gotten close to a tornado or two, but I’ve never actually been in one, and I’d like to keep it that way.

The characters of Eudora Gibson and Jenilee Lane are composites of people I have known, and the town of Poetry could be any small town—its people old-fashioned, stuck in their ways, sometimes critical and stubborn, yet beneath their gruff exterior, filled with compassion and determination.

Like the people of Oklahoma City and New York City, the people of Poetry rise to the occasion when challenged. I hope that their triumph will leave readers feeling uplifted. It is always my intention, my desire to write stories in which characters grow to a fuller understanding of their world, themselves, and their spirituality. I like stories that end happily, and even though happy endings are sometimes criticized as being “pat” or unrealistic, that is where my heart goes as a writer, as a reader, and as a human being. I want to believe that all things are possible, in writing and in life.

 

Q. Good Hope Road deals with many important themes. Which ones do you hope will generate the most discussion?

 

A. The important issues in Good Hope Road are those that the characters struggle with during the days after the tornado—the need for the support of family and community, the need of every individual to be accepted and valued, the need to leave the past behind to move toward the future. The novel also explores the idea that God brings together people who can learn from one another, the difficulty of escaping marital and family abuse, the ability of faith to sustain people through difficult times, and how struggle can bring out both the best and the worst in individuals and in communities.

 

Q. When you speak to readers, via personal appearances and e-mail, what questions do they most commonly ask?

 

A. First, they want to know whether future stories will revisit the family in my first novel, Tending Roses. The answer is yes. The characters from Tending Roses make a brief appearance in Good Hope Road and are connected to Jenilee and her family through Jenilee’s grandmother, Angeline, and her sister, Rose, the grandmother in Tending Roses. In the future I would like to investigate the past relationship between Rose and Angeline and explore what caused the family rift that has separated the descendants.

Readers also ask where I get my story ideas. I have to confess that ideas can come from almost anywhere. In Good Hope Road, the impetus was a flash of news footage. Tending Roses was inspired by my relationship with my grandmother and the life lessons she shared with me when I became a mother. I found the germ of an idea for Texas Cooking, which NAL will publish in the fall of 2003, in a conversation with my husband about the old-fashioned wit and wisdom found in the small-town cafés of central Texas. The novel I am now writing was first inspired by my family’s move to an area that borders an intersection long called the Crossroads. On one corner is an abandoned store, known as the Crossroads Store, which has a fascinating and colorful history.

People also ask how long I’ve been writing. I always answer, “All of my life,” but I know many writers who began writing very late in life, including a friend of mine who was first published at seventy-five years old. As for myself, I can’t remember a time when I didn’t write. My first grade teacher in Peaslee Elementary, Northboro, Massachusetts, first put into my head the dream of someday writing for a living when she wrote on my report card that she expected to see my name in a magazine one day. From then on, I hoped to write a book that would be published, and that people would read it and in response send a note, a prayer, or simply their good thoughts.

So, as I sit here on the porch writing these words on a quiet summer day in Texas, and as you sit reading them where you are, we are fulfilling a childhood dream, you and I.